St. Joseph’s team repeats as Spencer-RIMS winner

A student team from St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia took first place over 23 other university teams to claim the 2020 Spencer-RIMS Risk Management Challenge’s top honor for the second consecutive year.

The winning team was announced Friday by the New York-based Risk and Insurance Management Society Inc.

The student teams competed by offering solutions for reopening college campuses following COVID-19 in a case study provided by the University of Dayton, Ohio.

Members of the winning team included Joseph Angelina, Kayla Cecchine, Nicholas Myers, Brendan Tarte and Michael E. Angelina, academic adviser and executive director of the Maguire Academy of Insurance and Risk Management at St. Joseph’s.

The final round of the competition, which began eight months ago, evolved to reflect current events, with teams asked to assess the ongoing COVID-19 crisis to develop a strategy to bring students back to the University of Dayton for the fall semester.

Normally awarded at RIMS Annual Conference, the final rounds were conducted virtually.

“As COVID-19 has left business leaders with many questions to answer, our Spencer-RIMS Risk Management Challenge students took on the biggest one – how do we reopen for business – and demonstrated an extraordinary command of complex risk management practices and the creativity needed to support decision-making,” RIMS CEO Mary Roth said in a statement.

Florida State University placed second and Butler University third.

More insurance and risk management news on the coronavirus crisis here.